Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/72

 40 Serbian Habits aiid C^tstonis.

Judgment of God {Hasija). A ploughshare heated to white heat was dropped into a hirge kettle filled with boiling water, the accused had to seize this ploughshare with his hand and throw it far away. If his hand was untouched after the trial he was declared innocent. If, on the con- trary, he had traces of burns he was declared guilty.

If two brothers disputed their inheritance the question was settled by arbitration. That is how the legal customs were continued.

The Turks punished only rebellion, robbery and big crimes, when the latter were known to them.

Under the Turkish Government the Serbian Church lost a great deal of her prestige in former times. The Turks abolished the independence of the Serbian Church imme- diately after the conquest of Serbia. A great part of her clergy fled to Hungary. The crisis suffered by the Church under the Turkish Government made her more indulgent. She made numerous concessions to the popular religious views. The peasants occupied themselves with the care of the monasteries ; they offered them gifts and kept and repaired them. They also named the bishop without themselves conforming to the rules of the Church of the Middle Age, and they left to the priests only the honour of giving benediction. When it was possible to obtain permission from the Turks to build churches, the Serbian peasants constructed them. Naturally they were no longer built in the magnificent style of the Empire at its height, but only in the simple style of the houses of the ordinary villages. The national artisans made ikons representing apocryphal incidents existing in the popular traditions. The priests permitted — but very rarely — bigamy. They themselves married again, shaved their beards, wore the national uniform, danced the Kolo, led the people into battle against the Turks, and even rebelled themselves against their oppressors {/ladjuci). Under these circum- stances the peasants sometimes met without the assistance